


Still Crazy

by sue_denimme



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:32:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7189100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sue_denimme/pseuds/sue_denimme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sadly, we will never get to see Twelve and Sarah Jane together, but here's a conversation they might have had. (Takes place between Hell Bent and The Husbands of River Song for the Doctor, and after The Man Who Never Was for Sarah Jane.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Crazy

She liked to think she was getting good at recognizing him. Once you knew the signs, they were unmistakable. And she'd be willing to bet almost no one knew them as well as she did by now. At least, she bloody well ought to. She'd met several of his bodies, traveled extensively with two of them, been through at least one full-blown adventure with two more. It had to be some sort of record. Perhaps even something to be a little bit chuffed about, that she'd met him so many times and survived to tell the tale. If she were so inclined. Even the kids only knew a very little of it, and not from lack of trying.

This one, she'd never seen before. He wasn't either of the two she'd encountered in the last decade: the skinny, intense one in the pinstripes and trainers, or the baby-faced bow-tied one. Nor was he either of the ones she was still the most familiar with: the ruffles-and-velvet one or the insanely-long-scarf one. Or any of the others she'd met just the once in the Dark Tower.

He was as skinny as Pinstripes but much older-looking, with wavy silvery hair similar to Ruffles, wearing a long burgundy coat over a black hoodie, with an arty t-shirt peeking from under that, and a pair of chunky black square-framed sunglasses; a black-and-white electric guitar was slung around his shoulders. Someone else might have taken him for a faded rocker, lost on his way to some tatty casino gig after his comeback album tanked.

She really ought to do a spotter's guide one of these days, she thought.

He was perched on the bench she'd recently had installed in the garden, his left hand curled lightly round the neck of his guitar and the pick in his right poised over the bridge pickup, as he stared into space, obviously thinking. Then he seemed to make a decision, and began to play. Something slow and haunting with lots of long wailing notes. She sat near him on the bench to listen; he kept playing without even a glance her way.

This regeneration had been good to him in at least one aspect -- she was no music critic, but he was really quite talented. She let the last wail float away into the air before she spoke.

"So, did you help write it, teach him to play, or did he teach you?"

He shoved the glasses up onto the top of his head, then finally gave her a long look. His eyes this time were a steely blue, shaded beneath a set of truly ferocious eyebrows in a narrow, hawklike face. She returned his gaze, fighting a smile and losing. He grinned back, slowly, as if this face had trouble remembering how.

"Just the last. What gave me away?"

She shook her head, still smiling. "Your dress sense may have improved a bit since we traveled together, but still -- hanging about in my garden, looking out-of-place, looking like you don't care about looking out-of-place, doing something slightly weird -- you might as well have a big neon arrow over your head saying 'Doctor'."

"Really? Remember the school, with the Krillitanes? It took you until you saw the TARDIS before you twigged. My arrow must have been on the blink."

"Well, I was out of practice. And you were actually behaving yourself temporarily. And anyway, it's working now. What are you doing here? And what's with the Scottish accent?"

"First, I was in the neighbourhood. Second, you should've heard the one I had about five regenerations back. Well, five or six. Or seven. Not sure anymore."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh, of course, you just happened to be in the neighbourhood. My neighbourhood. In my garden. And you decided to sit down and play some guitar."

"Just maintaining my eccentric genius cred." He plucked a few bars of Still Crazy After All These Years. "I used to have a recorder. Helped me think, stopped me from getting bored. This has much the same effect. I highly recommend it."

She just had to hug him, albeit carefully as the guitar was between them. "It's good to see you, Doctor. What's wrong?" For she had felt him stiffen, just a little, and he hadn't even tried to reciprocate.

"Nothing. I wasn't prepared. Not a hugger, this time round. Sorry."

"Oh. No, *I'm* sorry for assuming. Your last couple of versions that I met were huge huggers. Did they use them all up?"

"Almost. I'm rationing them out now. OK, I'm ready." He opened his arms, and she obliged. He was more relaxed, but she could tell it was an effort for him, so she let go first, just barely hearing his quickly-suppressed sigh of relief as she did so, and backed off a few inches further to give him a little extra space. She made a mental note, for any future dealings she might have with this incarnation, to always ask first.

"So, is anyone with you?" she asked after a pause, realizing as she spoke that the answer was very probably no, judging both from the lack of anybody else visible and the fact that he didn't seem to be itching to go looking for wherever they'd gotten off to.

"No," he confirmed. "There was someone... I think. For a while. A long while. But..." He trailed off. She waited patiently. Finally he shook his head. "No."

"You don't sound very sure," she ventured into the long pause that followed.

"I'm sure, it's just... " Finally he sighed. "There are traces. Places we went, things we did, even some things she said. She was human, I know that much. From Earth, from this time zone. And I know her name. But her face, her voice -- they're... gone."

"Oh, Doctor." She didn't know how to go on from there.

"I really didn't mean to tell you that. There's nothing you can do. Or me. The block's too strong." He stared off into the sky. "I let it happen."

"Why would you let yourself forget someone who traveled with you?" And was this the only one, she wondered -- but obviously there was no use asking.

He shrugged, still not looking at her. "It's a price. I did a thing, and this is the price." She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand. "No, don't ask. We'd be here the rest of your life."

"It's that long a story?"

"No. It's that short."

She leaned back a little bit farther. "Ouch. Not one to pull any punches, this version, are you?" She let a couple of moments go by while he looked down at his guitar and said nothing. "You know, I used to get so frustrated with you never telling me the truth about how you felt about anything. Now I'm thinking I didn't know when I was well off."

"Well, I'll admit diplomacy isn't my strong suit this time. I've got a stack of cards somewhere with all the right things to say, but I think I lost them."

"Hmm. Not just this time. You said some not-very-nice things to me when I was stuck in an air conduit once, on Nerva. And you threatened to bite my nose. When I was blind."

"Got you moving again though, didn't it?"

"Yes, if only to get to you so I could strangle you with that stupid scarf." Her glare was ruined by turning into a chuckle.

He joined her after a moment. "You know, that's probably why I've never worn one since." He put his hands to his guitar again and produced a brief, discordant riff.

She lightly punched his arm. "So why did you come here? Did you want help finding that friend of yours? You said you know her name, and I've got the most powerful computer on Earth in my attic, not to mention K9."

For a second or two, he seemed to be thinking about that, but then he shook his head. "Thanks, but no. You don't get to take your money back. Not without giving back the thing you bought. You'd just have to pay for it again. And I'm done paying. For now."

"OK. Consider the offer open, then. But I ask again: why *did* you come here?" She inhaled tensely as a terrible thought occurred. "You're not about to -- ?"

His eyebrows rose. "Why would -- oh. No, I'm not. Fit as fifty fiddles. Believe it or not, this is a fairly new one. Two years, tops. Or four and a half billion and two. Hard to keep track."

"Well, that's good to know. The last time you turned up out of the blue with nothing else happening, I got the distinct impression something was very, very wrong. Was I right?"

"Hm, yes. Sorry I couldn't stay to chat. I was in a lot of pain, and I had a lot of people to see. Radiation. Not fun."

She grimaced in sympathy. "Ooh. Pity, I rather liked that one. What about the next one I met, with the..." She gestured at her jaw.

"With the chin that could smash boulders? Aged out, strangely enough." He stroked the guitar's strings, this time producing a jumble of random soft, whispery tones. "I don't always have a purpose for the things I do, Sarah. Or know if there is one, maybe one that I'm not seeing. Sometimes I just do things to do them. Or the TARDIS takes me somewhere that she thinks will be good for me. I don't even ask any more, because she's always right."

A warmth grew inside her, like a star bursting in the middle of her chest. She started for him, then hesitated. He nodded his permission, even moved the guitar out of the way, and she hugged him tightly, feeling his arms closing around her in return after a moment.

"That is the best compliment I've ever been given. Thank you, Doctor."

"Does that make up for Nerva, then?" he asked, over her shoulder.

"And then some."

"Good." There was a tiny, almost shy smile on his face when they separated. "Because I was wrong. I may have had an ulterior motive, a fairly decent one even, but I was still wrong."

"Oh, now *there*'s an historic event. The Doctor, admitting he was wrong." She shaded her eyes with her hand and pretended to check the sky for cracks, then gestured at their surroundings. "And the universe is still here. Amazing."

"Isn't it." He shifted the guitar back round, and began to play something else, but then stopped abruptly, and the eyes of every version of him she had ever known were there in the eyes that now looked at her keenly. "What I just said about not having a reason to come here -- I was wrong about that too. I did have a reason. I've finally figured it out. I came here to say I'm sorry. For Nerva and Skaro and Karn, and every other terrible place I dragged you to and then blamed you for being unprepared and having such a limited little pudding brain, when the truth is I was just like that too once, when I first left Gallifrey. You know what happened? You did. Humans did. Every one of you that I took along made me a little bit better. You know why you still have a planet and a universe and your lives? It isn't because of me. You made me, Sarah. All of you."

For a long moment after that torrent of words, she just stared back at him, speechless, until he looked down at his guitar again, his hands moving into position to start playing again but then staying still.

Then at last she cleared her throat. "Wow. What prompted that?"

He shrugged a little, but seemed to be done talking.

"Are you telling me because you can't tell her?" she asked finally, lowering her voice.

"Maybe," he said quietly after another pause. "Does it matter? It's been there for a long time, in the back of my mind. Since at least when you were with me, I think. But you know me. You thought I had an ego back then? It's bigger now. You have no idea."

"But you got round it. Took you long enough, but you did. I think there may be hope for you, Doctor."

He made a scoffing sound, but there was a reluctant half-smile on his lips which told her that perhaps this was another reason the TARDIS, in her wisdom, had brought him here -- because whatever he had done that was so awful that he felt he had to give up his memories of a friend as atonement had left him badly in need of hearing those words from someone he would believe.

As he began playing again, she listened, even started to hum along a bit.

"Oh, and I'm sorry about Aberdeen too," he added after he was finished.

She thought about that sunny street where she had found herself standing in her Andy Pandy outfit and fur jacket, with a small suitcase, a stuffed owl, a potted flower, and a tennis racquet, but without money or a ticket home, because of course that wouldn't have occurred to someone who was used to whooshing about through time and space wherever he wanted and barely even knew what money was, and also thought he'd gotten the location right.

She smiled ruefully. "It was time. And I knew it was time. You probably won't remember, because you weren't listening to a word I was saying, as usual, but I was going on about how fed up I was and how I wanted to live like a normal person again, and I actually went and packed my things. Then when I came back you said you'd gotten the call from Gallifrey, and you had to take me home, and you did. Well, not exactly, but you did *think* you had. Knowing your track record, I don't know why I believed you. Anyway, I said, 'Don't forget me', which usually goes with 'Goodbye', so it wasn't your fault that you took it that way. And you never actually said you were coming back. So if anyone should be sorry, it's me, for wasting all those years feeling abandoned. I don't know about you, but I'd say we're even."

"Sorry, were you saying something just then?" When she glared, he grinned and pointed at her in a "gotcha" sort of way that reminded her of his pinstriped self. Her glare dissolved again into an eyeroll and a headshake.

She stood. "Care for a cuppa? It's the least I could do, after all that lovely music you played me."

He did care for one, as it happened. With a ridiculous amount of sugar, just like her first Doctor.

"Will I see you again?" she asked after one more song and yet another hug, which he actually initiated this time.

"Probably not," he said.

"Oh." This newfound bluntness of his was still startling.

He shifted the guitar to hang behind him and slipped his sunglasses back on. "But then again, we've both thought that before, haven't we?"

She watched as he walked off down Bannerman Road, and hoped it wouldn't be too long before he found someone else to be better for.

 

\- end

**Author's Note:**

> Since I dislike fics that project the author's musical taste onto canon characters, I chose not to include the titles of the songs I "heard" the Doctor playing when I wrote this. Well, one. But I'm very, very sure that both he and Sarah Jane know and like all of them and find them deeply moving and relevant.


End file.
